VRA Investment Letter: What a Time to Be Alive. "The Big Bribe" Continues to Play Out. Another Significant Contrarian Set-up
/
Good Friday morning. What a time to be alive. What a time to be an American.
Read More
VRA Investment Letter: The Comeback Kids America-Saving, Landslide Election. It's Morning in America, Again. The Trump Economic Miracle Meets The Roaring 2020's "Innovation Revolution".
/
Are You Kidding Me!
Like many of you, we’re operating on no sleep and still half-shocked. President Trump (45, 47) delivered an epic, superhero-like election comeback bombshell that will go down as the greatest political story in modern history. It’s morning in America, again. God just blessed us, again. And yes, Americas best days are directly ahead.
Read MoreVRA Investment Letter: Fox Business, Real Americas Voice. Strong Retail Sales. Aggressively Long Tech. What if Harris Wins? The Power of Investor Sentiment.
/
Good Thursday morning. Heads up: I’m scheduled to be on Fox Business ‘Making Money’ with Charles Payne in the 2PM EST hour, followed by a 10 PM EST interview on Real Americas Voice ‘The Root Reaction’ with Wayne Allyn Root. Hope you can join us!
Breaking: retail sales for the month of July…
VRA Investment Letter: Excellent Setup Unfolding Into Tech Earnings. Massive Tech Disruption & Growth. Bull Market in Early Innings.
/
Good Thursday morning. We’ve dedicated much of the last week's VRA Letters to the “war risks” and corresponding action in the broad markets. We’re now just a few days away from Q1 tech earnings kicking off in style, with high profile names Tesla (next Tuesday), META (Wednesday) and Alphabet, Amazon, Intel and Microsoft set to report next Thursday. We see a great setup unfolding…
Read MoreVRA Investment Letter: Led By Semis & Housing, Significant Technical Breakouts Abound. Excellent CPI Report. Our "Disinflation" & "Great Reset" Themes Playing Out.
/
Good Thursday morning. Following what has been a near-parabolic move higher from the 10/27 lows, strength in the semiconductors has now led to key breakouts for the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Housing stocks, negating what had bears believed was a picture-perfect short for these indices at resistance
Read MoreVRA Investment Letter: Parabolic Move Higher; Next Up. The "Stunning" Reality of US Economic Health. Angry Permabears at Remarkable Economic Strength.
/
Good Thursday morning. Following the parabolic move higher in each major US equity index from the 10/27 lows…just as seasonality was turning bullish…on the VRA System we now have each index hitting extreme overbought levels, but importantly this is only on our shortest term momentum oscillators. Combined with the shockingly bullish technical signals that we’ve seen over the last 8 trading days it remains our view that important lows are in place and that pullbacks from here should continue to be bought (if we have pullbacks, that is).
Read MoreVRA Investment Letter: Back Up the Truck. Set-Ups That Say "Buy Now". Fresh Bond Market Buy Signals
/
Good Thursday morning. This morning's CPI report came in slightly above estimates with September prices paid for consumers rising .04% month/month vs estimates of .03%. Year over year, core CPI came in at 4.1% vs estimates of 4.1%.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Q3 GDP Growth Est Now 5.8%. Our Roaring 20's Megatrends Hard at Work. Buffet Loves Housing.
/
Last year, and well into 2023, you could throw a rock at 100 mainstream economists…grouped together like sardines…and not hit a single one that wasn’t predicting a recession (outside of Evercore’s Ed Hyman, that is). It was essentially unanimous; the US was headed into a recession and it was barreling towards us like a freight train.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Disinflation is Here. Get Ready for 2% Inflation Next Year PLUS Fed Rate Cuts. How We Want to Play It.
/
Good Thursday morning. July CPI (consumer prices) gained 3.2% on an annual basis, less than the 3.3% consensus from economists estimates. On a month-to-month basis, inflation increased just 0.2%, which was in-line with estimates while year/year CPI came in at 4.7%, matching estimates. The report also said real average weekly earnings were unchanged last month, in another positive sign that the Fed can be less concerned about a wage price spiral.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Disinflation Continues. Yes, This is a Bull Market. More Contrarian Buy Signals
/
Breaking; we just learned that the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge (core PCE) fell to 4.2% in March from 5.1% in February. This marks 8 straight months that we’ve had “disinflation”. With both US and European GDP reports coming in weak, we reiterate our call for the Fed to cease rate hikes and to begin cutting rates. The 10 year yield is 3.44% this AM while the Fed funds rate is 5%. The Fed never leads, they only follow. The markets are screaming at the Fed to “pause and pivot”.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Strong Amidst Disinflation & Overbought Indicators
/Good Thursday morning. Disappointing afternoon action in the markets yesterday following the March CPI report (that was essentially in line), with talking heads reporting that the primary culprit for market weakness was FOMC minutes that forecasted a “mild recession” at the end of the year. If we listened to the talking heads we’d probably keep our heads in the sand and remain 100% in cash.
We continue to be bullish on stocks and look for a solid rest of the month which will likely include Q1 earnings that surprise to the upside. We’ll get a taste of Q1 tomorrow morning with JP Morgan and Citi earnings reports. If I didn’t dislike bank/financial stocks so much I would be a buyer here. I think they might just blow the doors off…certainly the behemoths.
This morning we got more proof that inflation continues to evolve into disinflation. Huge drop in PPI this AM. The Fed will cut rates by year end. Were it not for the Trump Economic Miracle we’d likely be in a deep recession today.
But even with this beat (to both CPI and PPI), the odds have increased that we have a “negative credit impulse” building with rising odds of a recession, certainly after the implosions of SVB and Signature Bank NY. The latest inflation reports did not capture these banking failures and potential credit crunch as it’s inherently backward looking. The CPI report is always a “fade” and I think this report is especially the case. A Fed pause and pivot should now be here. I’ll be surprised if the fed hikes again on 5/3, but we have 3 more weeks of data plus of course earnings reports of Q1.
My forecast (of the last 4 months) remains unchanged; the Fed will start cutting rates in the 4th quarter and by years end the 10 year yield will fall below 3%.
Financial markets and the Fed are reading from two different playbooks but as history has taught us well, the Fed never leads, they only follow.
Chart Review S&P 500
The largest and most important equity index in the world continues to flash “buy me”. From the 10/13 bear market lows…just classic capitulation…SPX has a clear series of higher highs and higher lows as it remains well above its 200 dma and has worked off its overbought levels over the last week. I expect a breakout to take place in the next 1–2 weeks which would lead to a rally to 4300 + (5% + from here).
Semis (SMH)
Full VRA System look at the chart of SMH, which has worked off its extreme overbought levels and looks ready to make its next major move higher.
Well above its 200 dma and advancing steadily from the 10/13 lows using the blue trend line as stellar support.
Check out the supporting trend lines for RSI and MFI. Again, perfection. As goes the semis, so goes the market.
Precious Metals and Miners; overbought but still flashing “BUY”
While the miners are hitting extreme overbought levels on the VRA System, our top buy signal for this group (precious metals) continues to flash strong buy.
Below is a chart of the relative strength of miners (GDX) to gold. When the miners are leading gold higher, its an extraordinarily strong buy signal.
This group has been doing exactly what it’s known for, acting as a discounting mechanism for what comes next; rate cuts and eventually more QE/money printing. The bull market of bull markets is underway for metals and miners.
Rising Housing, Transports, Semis and Bitcoin; discounting mechanisms and high probability correlations that tell us “the markets are headed higher”.
From our new book “The Big Bribe” (below). Housing is a long term bullish mega trend & should continue to propel the US economy. Housing bears are just plain wrong.
VRA Bottom Line: we remain long and strong as we’ve entered a top 2 month of the year and the best year period (pre-election years are highly bullish). As always, we’re keying off of the semis. We have been aggressively long from the 10/13 bear market lows and will likely remain long well into April, although last week we hit overbought levels that we paid attention to. We’ve now worked off those ST overbought levels and the markets reaction to Q1 earnings is “everything”. We look for the rest of April to be stellar.
Heads up; we have a target in mind for potentially taking profits on some of our ETF positions. It rhymes with “sell in May and go away”.
Until next time, thanks again for reading.
Kip
Join us for two free weeks at VRAInsider.com
Please join us each day after the market closes for our Daily VRA Investing Podcast! Sign up for email alerts @ vrainsider.com/podcast
Also, Find us on Truth Social and Rumble
VRA Investment Update: VRA Quick Hitters. This is Not 2008. Investors at Extreme Fear; Contrarian Buy Signal. The charts Say Buy.
/
Good Friday morning all. VRA Quick hitters;
1) Weakness in European shares today as Deutsche Bank is down 15%, taking the European bank index down 5% on the day.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Follow the Semis & Buy The Dip. Economic Acceleration; The Trump Economic Miracle
/
Breaking: Treasury yields lost momentum this AM, with stock markets reversing higher, after the Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims rose to 211K last week, up from 190K the week before and more than the 195K forecast by analysts. The 10-year yield sits at 3.96%, after trading above 4% before the data. The data indicates the labor market may be weakening (due to higher interest rates).
Read MoreVRA Investing Update: The Powell Pivot. Disinflation! VRA Quick Hitters; The Bullish Case.
/
The Jekyll and Hyde that is Fed Chair J Powell made another appearance yesterday, but instead of the ultra-hawisk Powell from the Jackson Hole Wyoming speech of last August (which crashed the markets) we got the sweetheart J Powell that, without question IMO, wanted to see stocks and bonds rise further still.
Read MoreVRA Investment Update: Bear Market Ending as We Climb a BIG Wall of Worry?
/
Good Friday morning all. As we’ve covered over the last year, the current bear market…the 3rd in 4 years…actually started in February 2021. That’s when groups such as SPACs, meme stocks, China, biotechnology, etc hit a top and started to decline.
Read More